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Paul Clement Czaja, Ph.D., has been involved in the Montessori movement of alternative education for more than 50 years. Dr. Czaja was on the founding faculty and, eventually, headmaster at the famous Whitby School, The American Montessori Center, in Greenwich, Connecticut, from 1960 until 1979. He has been involved in Montessori teacher training for many years, and has worked with Montessori public charter schools as well as independent schools. He can be reached at czaja36@yahoo.com.
As a “well-seasoned” Montessori educator and also as an “old grandpa” Montessori parentcator, I learned a long time ago that our children need us to create a family atmosphere wherever we happen to be together. This is so because it is within the love of the family that children begin to experience what it...
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Sadly much of our educational world has been frozen upside down for too long. There has been a great deal of educational and psychological research written expounding the critical importance of good early childhood education, both at home and at school, but no one is reading it, and to date the majority of governmental...
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Many years ago when I had made the transition from being an educator to being an administrator my life became beset with a lot of worries. Every hour of the day I was being confronted with one big problem after another related to the many aspects and personnel of the school body. Noticing my...
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Because my stories and lectures tend to celebrate what is positive in life – and especially what is so wonder-filled about children, I tend to be thought of as somewhat “Pollyanna-ish” – not so! I am Polish, and I am an existentialist, but I don’t accept “Pollyanna-ish.” I have learned during all my years...
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When I was in training to become a Montessori educator (way, way back when!) I was required to read a small book written by Dr. Montessori titled To Educate the Human Potential. It was a real “eye-opener.” The first thing it made me very aware of was that my responsibilities to the developing child...
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I have a question for you. What does George Washington Carver have in common with Maria Montessori? Here is a clue. I find it significant that I am very fond of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and also have been a servant of children my whole adult life. Hmmm. Looking at the biographies of...
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Through the early years of my schooling I was never asked or given the opportunity to discover the human gift of creativity. My daily lessons were all directed by the teacher’s command to “copy” this or “copy” that as accurately as I could possibly do, and then my childhood efforts were severely corrected by...
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Being educators working within a Montessori charter public school, my colleagues and I strive to provide learning environments for children that are different from the familiar, traditional, graded classrooms of their neighborhood schools. Because of such purposed uniqueness, I think it might be helpful if I shared the values that make our learning environments...
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Late afternoon, the other day, as I was driving out of school, I saw on the bright sunny driveway the daring dash of a turtle striving to get across into the thick grass on the other side of the road. His round helmet shell of a back was black and mossy and still a...
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